Jarvas turned to the men. “What did you learn?”
Kelemark reported first. “They are on this side of the river, first burning and then grubbing. They are determined to erase the Forest—to kill it and its life.”
“There is a camp of port men,” Ayyar added. “And—” he repeated the conversation he had overheard.
“Green demons raiding garths!” Jarvas broke in. “But—we are the monsters their ignorance has feared for years. And we of Iftsiga are the only ones this side of the South Sea.”
“There is one way to learn more—” Illylle arose. “I shall water-question the Mirror. But”—she looked to Kelemark—”do you remain here, for until you are purified you may not approach Thanth.”
She put no prohibition on Ayyar, so he followed as she and Jarvas climbed the stairway that led to the ledge above the silent, brooding lake in the crater cup, the repository or focus of a power they did not understand.
Once more Illylle went to her knees on the edge of that ledge, stretching out her arms over the water.
“Blessing upon the water which is of life,” she said and then fell silent. She stooped to wet a finger tip, and this she raised to her lips that her words might give them the needed answer, her mind now open to the Mirror. When she spoke, she did not look at her companions but across the lake, and upon her was the aura of one who is a vessel of power.
“Ift is not Ift. Evil wears the semblance of right. One defeat in battle does not end a war. The seed is endangered before the sowing—”
To Ayyar it made little sense. But he saw that Jarvas, perhaps by the power of interlocking thought the Mirrormasters once had, gained knowledge, his expression now being grimly dark. He put forth his hand to lay on Illylle’s head. She blinked as an awareness of self flowed in.
“Come!” Jarvas brought them back to the walled road. Now Rizak and Lokatath were also there.
“Jarvas, there are Iftin—” Lokatath began.
“Not Iftin, true Iftin!” Illylle cried. “They may wear Iftin shapes, but they do the will of the White Forest, not the Green!”
Jarvas nodded. “It is so. That has not been defeated, only awakened. It has set the off-worlders against us in this manner.”
“They have overrun garths,” Lokatath reported. “I hid in the river rocks and heard those at the camp speak of it. They have slain and destroyed, these false Iftin, in a manner to arouse garthmen and port against them, so that old differences are forgotten and all off-worlders unite to wipe out the Forest and any Iftin found there—without mercy.”
“The Forest is very large,” began Illylle. Then she looked to Jarvas. “Can they really do this thing?”
“There are few of them here now,” he replied soberly. “But they must already have summoned off-planet help. Yes, they can do this, if such aid comes.”
Ayyar’s hand fell to his sword hilt. “If That uses them, as It used the Larsh—”
“Yes,” Jarvas agreed. “It was after my time that the Larsh became the weapons of That. My memory is of the Green Leaf, not the Gray. Now, it seems It would use these off-worlders in the same fashion, perhaps to the same victorious end.”
“I wonder”—Ayyar put into words his thoughts—”does That always have to use others as tools? There was the space suit that herded Illylle and me into captivity—we never discovered what wore it. Was it not the same when That took you prisoner before us? Those wytes, Its hounds, hunted us, and we felt the drawing of Its power when we escaped to the Mirror. In Ayyar’s day the Larsh were sent to pull down Iftcan. Now the off-worlders are provoked into serving Its purpose. But never does That venture forth Itself. Why? What do you remember from the Oath of Kymon?”
“As to the nature of That?” Kelemark asked. “That is a thought, Jarvas. If It is so strong, why—?”
“Kymon went into the White Forest and strove with That and forced upon It the Oath, which held during the Blue Leaf and the Green, to be broken in the Gray.” Illylle repeated well-known history.
“And the nature of That which he found in the White Forest?” Ayyar persisted.
She shook her head. “Jarvas?” she appealed in turn.
“Nothing,” he replied. “It uses mental control; we all know that. Beyond—” He shrugged. “Now, apparently, It also has Iftin, or beings resembling Iftin, fighting for It. Those Iftin we must seek.”
“Our noses should lead us.” Rizak nodded to the rag.
“Meanwhile, the Forest dies,” Illylle pointed out. “What has been our hope? To raise up a new nation, then seek our freedom from an off-world colony under the law. If they continue to destroy our home, there will be no chance for us ever to treat with them.”
“She is right,” Rizak agreed. “We have to make them understand what is really going on before they reach a point of no return for any of us!”
“And just how will you do this?” challenged Lokatath.
“By capturing one of the false Iftin,” Ayyar said, “and proving the difference.”
They stared at him, and then Jarvas laughed shortly. “Simple, yet perhaps the best solution. So now we go ahunting for the Enemy, and I think that means prowling along the river.”
“Can you foresee their trail there?” Kelemark asked Illylle.
“Not in this. While they move, they are encased in their master’s protection, and I have not the skill to break that. We must do this by eye, nose, and ear.”
It was decided to follow the shore south from the entrance to the Mirror, along the river. Night would favor them most, since Iftin senses were nocturnal and already the day was far sped. Thus, wrapped in cloaks, they lay against the road wall and slept.
Swiftly at dusk they sped along their chosen route. Winter-dried reeds, far higher than their heads, made a small woodland. But these beds they skirted. The change in temperature from day to night, as always, altered odors. Some were sharper; others faded. There were sounds; the scratching which was an earth-lizard dragging a river worm back and forth across gravel, the calls of hunters winged and four-footed. Once they crouched in silence, waiting while one of the great carnivores swung its muzzle under the water at the river’s edge, champing jaws meanwhile, to wash out its mouth after feeding. And the fresh blood smell of that meal reached them.
But no unusual scent tainted the air. The land the Mirror had cleansed was now behind them, and the darkness of the true Waste lay to their right. In the north the sky was bright.
“Now they beam at night.” Lokatath stated the obvious.
“They grow impatient or more afraid,” Kelemark replied.
Was Iftsiga already burning? Ayyar wondered. And what of the seed chests? Would their hiding place among the roots of the Citadel be deep enough to protect them from the earth-tearing snout of the grubber?
Water vapor clung to the river at this point. And here they picked up the trail they sought. Lokatath spat, and Ayyar tasted bitter moisture gathering in his own mouth. The stench from the rag had been bad, but this was infinitely worse. Drawn into one’s nostrils, it seemed to fill one’s lungs with a lingering, loathsome residue.
“Fresh?” Rizak commented.
“Yes, and leading over river to the garths.”
Ice-rimmed logs and rocks, their surfaces just above the winter-shrunken stream, made a bridge of sorts. The Iftin used it.
“Ah—” The soft exclamation from Illylle drew Ayyar’s attention. She was frowning, her head turning from right to left and then back again, as one who tried to discover some half-forgotten landmarks.
“What is it?”
“This way, does it not lead to Himmer’s?”
West and south— Yes, not far from here he, newly Ift himself, had seen the transformation of Ashla Himmer into Illylle, had aided her through the worst of that discovery that she was now alien to her kind. Though she had not believed—not at first—that she was alien. She had insisted upon returning to her garth, to seek out the younger sister she cherished. Only when the repulsion each felt now for the other had been made plain had she been convinced that kin of Ashla were not of Illylle’s. Yet perhaps now a faint stir of that old affection worked in her.
Over the river the trail did not run straight. It was almost as if that which they hunted had quested, like a hound seeking a quarry of its own. Then, far away, sounded the barking of garth dogs. From Himmer’s? Ayyar could not be sure. But he hoped it lay more to the west.
Now the trail straightened, and they fell into a half run natural to Iftin. A woodland engulfed them though this was not the Forest. Yet it was good, like unto a drink of cool water in the day’s heat, to have trees close about them—bare of leaf, winter-ravaged as those were.